Roger Federer as Religious Experience - Tennis

The Moments are more intense if you’ve played enough tennis to understand the impossibility of what you just saw him do. We’ve all got our examples. Here is one. It’s the finals of the 2005 U.S. Open, Federer serving to Andre Agassi early in the fourth set. Anyway, that’s one example of a Federer Moment, and that was merely on TV — and the truth is that TV tennis is to live tennis pretty much as video porn is to the felt reality of human love. Journalistically speaking, there is no hot news to offer you about Roger Federer. This present article is more about a spectator’s experience of Federer, and its context. Beauty is not the goal of competitive sports, but high-level sports are a prime venue for the expression of human beauty. The human beauty we’re talking about here is beauty of a particular type; it might be called kinetic beauty. Of course, in men’s sports no one ever talks about beauty or grace or the body. July 9’s men’s final, though, is everyone’s dream.

Game Point: All-Roger Federer edition | Busted Racquet Anyone else getting 'Sailing' stuck in their heads? (AP) Game Point is Busted Racquet's roundup of facts, figures and links from across the web. Love -- Roger Federer won the 72nd tournament of his career this weekend, defeating Andy Murray in the finals of Dubai, 7-5, 6-4. It was the 30-year-old's fifth title in his last seven tournaments and put further distance between he and Murray for the No. 3 ranking. 15 -- Federer's 72 tournament titles are fourth all time, behind Jimmy Connors (109), Ivan Lendl (94) and John McEnroe (77). 30 -- Andy Murray says Federer could be No. 1 if more tournaments were played on faster courts rather than the slower surfaces that are favored by tournament officials. 40 -- Federer plays Monday night in a New York exhibition against Andy Roddick. Game -- While killing some time in Manhattan, Federer visited his display at the city's Niketown store.

Concrete Elbow by Steve Tignor - Mr. Sane Rolls On Third in a series about players to watch in 2012. At the start of the 2010 season, I wrote an article about Roger Federer that I titled “The Afterlife.” By that I meant that Federer, who at the time had 15 Grand Slam wins and was going to be 29 later in the year, would be entering a new phase in his career, one where he would essentially be competing against himself, rather than any historical records. I thought it was going to be interesting to see how he maintained his motivation, because few if any players had ever experienced as much success as he had, seemingly with years still left to play. Since then, he’s won one, which by his standards means that his trip to tennis heaven has thus far been a disappointment. There has always been a “how does he do that?” But just as uncanny is Federer’s immunity from burnout. Meanwhile, Federer rolls on. What does Federer need to do to keep winning in 2012? Federer is the star with the wife and two kids.